Protester killed in fresh clashes

Kashmiri women offer bangles to Ban over inaction

SRINAGAR, India, Aug 24, (Agencies): One protester was killed on Wednesday in fresh clashes with security forces armed with shotguns in Indian-administered Kashmir which is reeling from weeks of deadly violence, police said.

As Home Minister Rajnath Singh arrived in the disputed region to discuss the unrest with local political, business and other leaders, thousands of residents rallied in Pulwama in southern Kashmir.

Security forces fired tear gas and shotguns to disperse the crowd which had defied a curfew to gather on the streets, said local police superintendent Rayees Mohammad Bhat.

“This youth died of (shotgun) pellet injuries,” Bhat told AFP.

At least 14 other protesters were injured in the clashes, said a doctor at a leading hospital in the main city of Srinagar where they were taken for treatment.

Kashmir has been under a curfew since protests broke out over the death of popular young rebel leader Burhan Wani on July 8 in a gunfight with security forces.

Some 66 civilians have been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces, and thousands more injured in the worst violence to hit the Himalayan region since 2010.

Many of those injured have been hit in the eyes with pellets, causing partial or complete blindness.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for an end to the violence, stressing the need for dialogue with political parties to find a solution.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule in August 1947 but both claim the territory in full.

Tens of thousands, mostly civilians, have been killed since 1989 when an armed revolt against Indian rule began. Rebel groups are seeking either independence or a merger with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, women in Pakistanadministered Kashmir offered their bangles to Ban Ki-moon Tuesday, an insult in patriarchal South Asia aimed at the UN head’s perceived inaction over violence on the Indian side of the disputed region.

Hundreds of refugee women marched in Muzzafarabad, capital of the Pakistani side, chanting slogans against the UN and India as some clutched their bangles in their hands in protest at the weeks of deadly violence.

Much of Indian-administered Kashmir has been under curfew since protests broke out over the death on July 8 of a popular young rebel leader in a gunfight with security forces.

More than 60 civilians have been killed in clashes between protesters and police and troops and thousands more injured in the worst violence to hit the restive region since 2010.

Hospitals have reported hundreds of young men and boys suffering serious eye and other injuries from the pellets.

“If the secretary general of the UN Ban Ki-moon can’t help Kashmiris, he should wear these bangles and rest,” protester Irshad Qureshi told AFP, clutching her bracelets.

Others held placards saying the bangles were “For UN”. The protesters also burnt the Indian flag.

Bangles are deeply embedded in female identity in Pakistan.

To offer the delicate bracelets to a man is to say he is acting like a woman — still seen as an insult in the deeply conservative country, where women have been fighting for their rights for decades.

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Heavy monsoon rains have ended two successive drought years in India with the Ganges River and its tributaries rising above the danger level, triggering evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from flooded homes in north and eastern India, an official said Wednesday.

Drowning, electrocution or injuries from collapsed houses have killed at least 175 people, mainly in West Bengal, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states this season, said Rakesh Ranjan, a National Disaster Response Force official. Lightning has killed 57 people in Bihar state.

Ranjan said flooding worsened after water was discharged from various dams brimming after heavy rains in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarkhand states.

Floods occur in many parts of India during the monsoon season, which runs from June through September.

In the Hindu holy town of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, flooding forced a halt to cremations at a main riverfront area. Some people have been lighting the funeral pyres at rooftops along the flooded river bank.

Devout Hindus bring dead family members to Varanasi in the belief that being cremated there frees their soul from the cycle of death and rebirth.